Thus we are returned to the eternal question, Does democracy have to mean we want to be led by average slobs? Congress is bad enough without being filled with losers who never made more than $50K in their lives. You populist types want a burger-flipper with his finger on the button?

Anybody who says he wants a common man in high office hasn't talked to a common man lately. Or perhaps he's even more common than he suspects.

Better Carter, "I gotta get Egypt and Israel talking to each other. You leathernecks carry the luggage."

Better Del Blasio, "How am I supposed to focus on financing K-12 when I'm locked out of the pot?"

Is the average common man really that democratically inclined anyway? Or does it take a touch of greatness to be truly democratic, if only in the Maslovian sense?

Lincoln: common background but not a common man. An exceptional man who believed on popular government. Go figure.

When Jimmy Carter carried his own luggage and wore sweaters in a cold White House, did he humble himself or the United States? When the Reagans brough a touch of regality back to the White House, did he glorify himself or us?

The only member of my family who ever "made it" in the world of business (one of the few who even tried) was one of my grandfathers, born 1890's in NYC. His was kind of a Horatio Alger story (quit school at the end of 8th grade to support his deserted mother, so forth), served in WWI, got an engineering degree, rose to be president and chairman of the board. Shortly after that last promotion, a family friend found him scrubbing the bathroom, on his knees. She laughed (since she knew him so well, she wasn't really surprised). The bathroom needed cleaning, it was a Sunday and he wasn't at work, so he cleaned it. That was then. (Probably late 1940's, early 1950's). The NYT often seems to have no memory of its own city.